Top tech startup news for today, Friday, November 22, 2019 – Tesla, AirBnB, Capitolis, Google, Next Coast Ventures

Good morning! Below are some of the top tech startup news for today, Friday, November 22, 2019.

Tesla claimed its pickup truck was ‘bulletproof’ — then smashed its windows with a metal ball. You are probably tired of hearing about Tesla’s new electric pickup truck dubbed CyberTruck. Yesterday, Tesla CEO unveiled the new electric truck in Los Angeles. However, things went south rather quickly as Musk claimed the car was “bulletproof” against a 9mm handgun. But when he got Tesla’s chief designer to throw a metal ball at one of the truck’s armored windows, audible surprise could be heard as the glass smashed — twice. The debut did not go well as the company had hoped.  “Oh my f—— G_d,” Musk exclaimed as the ball smashed the glass. The price of Tesla’s Cybertruck starts at $39,900.

Fintech startup Capitolis scores $40M in Series B financing to accelerate growth. Capitolis, a fintech startup focused on innovating global capital markets, completed its Series B funding round of $40 million to expand its technology platform, functionality and product offering. The round was led by Spark Capital and SVB Capital with participation from existing investors Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital and S Capital. To date, Capitolis has raised a total of $70 million in funding. Founded by industry fintech veterans Gil Mandelzis, Tom Glocer and Igor Teleshevsky, the New York-based Capitolis provides a live tech platform through which financial institutions are
able to collaborate, reduce capital utilization, and find the attractive sources of capital.

Google acquires CloudSimple to help customers migrate to the cloud. Google has gobbled up VMware workload startup, CloudSimple. The total amount of the deal was not disclosed. This is Google’s 8th acquisition to date. CloudSimple is a leading provider of secure, high performance, dedicated environments to run VMware workloads in the cloud. CloudSimple also helps cloud vendors to deploy and manage workloads in a dedicated, private cloud in public clouds.The acquisition, which builds on Google existing partnership with CloudSimple announced earlier this year, will enable Google to accelerate a fully integrated VMware migration solution with improved support for our customers. As part of the deal, CloudSimple team will join Google Cloud.

Airbnb COO leaving the company as it navigates regulatory pressure and seeks to go public in 2020. Airbnb’s Belinda Johnson announces she is stepping down as COO in March in an email to staff sent Friday that was viewed by CNBC. Before her current role as the COO, Belinda served as chief business affairs and legal officer. She has steered Airbnb through regulatory and legal turbulence. Johnson isn’t leaving Airbnb entirely. She will join the company’s board of directors as its ninth member and third woman. Airbnb is shaping up to be the most anticipated public debut of 2020.

Heartseed scores $26M in Series B Funding to Accelerate Development of iPSC-derived Regenerative Medicine for Heart Failure. Heartseed, a Tokyo-based biotechnology startup developing iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes for the treatment of heart failure (HF), has raised 26 Million (2.8 Billion-yen) Series B financing. The round, which brings its total financial backing to 3.8 Billion yen (approx. $35 Million) since inception in 2015, was led by new investors, SBI Investment, JMDC, Gene Techno Science, Nissay Capital, SMBC Capital, and an existing investor, Astellas Venture Management LLC., which has supported Heartseed from Series A.

1.2 billion people’s personal and social information exposed in a massive data leak in an unsecured dark web server; largest data leak in history. A dark web researchers Bob Diachenko and Vinny Troia found a trove of data sitting exposed and easily accessible on an unsecured server—about 1.2 billion records in all—containing profiles of hundreds of millions of people that include phone numbers and social media profiles. The data comprises  4 terabytes of personal information—about 1.2 billion records in all. A total count of unique people across all data sets reached more than 1.2 billion people, making this one of the largest data leaks from a single source organization in history. The leaked data contained names, email addresses, phone numbers, LinkedIN and Facebook profile information. What makes this data leak unique is that it contains data sets that appear to originate from 2 different data enrichment companies.

Next Coast Ventures secures $130M in Second Fund to invest in early stage, high-growth startups. Next Coast Ventures, an Austin-based venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs on the ‘Next Coast’ of innovation, today announced the close of its $130 million second fund (“NCV II”). Combined with the firm’s $85 million debut fund, Next Coast Ventures is positioned to expand its investments in early stage, high-growth startups outside the coasts. Founded in 2015 by Michael Smerklo and Thomas Ball, Next Coast Ventures is an Austin venture capital firm that partners with bold entrepreneurs building innovative companies in big markets. It provides early-stage capital to high-growth startups in ‘Next Coast’ markets, using macro trends and themes to guide their investment strategy.